Mazal-Maram

Category	Ruins
Continent	Karterus
Region	Dhark Bolg
Founded	30 Bloom 455 LE
Map	Aerruxa

In the Lith-Crillion Era, prospectors from Ilagandam discovered rich gold veins within the Bandu cave complex. They established Mazal-Maram, a mining camp for the workers and a stronghold to safeguard their claim. Similar to their endeavors in Felak, Urbal Nabad, and other locations along the Earth Seam, they forged a trade alliance with the elementals.

You can never fully gain the trust and cooperation of the elementals. Some are simply too chaotic to manage effectively, while others have been corrupted and tainted by the environment surrounding them.

The strategy for securing passage, trade, and safeguarding along the Earth Seam, or its vicinity, is to negotiate a treaty with the majority of the region's elementals. Typically, these elementals operate in a decentralized manner, often opting to protect their own interests and collect "toll fees" rather than uniting with their counterparts. Ultimately, this arrangement proves mutually beneficial for all involved parties.

Khalgab, excerpt from Felak Trade Archives - "Seam Elementals"

In the settlement's early years, there were no smelting areas. They had no place to exhaust the smoke, so the gold ore from the Bandu mines was transported by pack lizards to Mazal-Maram, then loaded onto barges and shipped down the Earth Seam. It then traveled through the Underdark town Urbal Nabad, up tunnels and elevators to the surface town Ilagandam, where it was refined. After a couple of decades, relations between these two towns began to deteriorate. Ilagandam had become a commercial rival to Mazal-Maram, whose leaders anticipated that Urbal Nabad would likely raise toll fees to make their mining unprofitable, possibly leading to war between Urbal Nabad and Ilagandam. With many Mazal-Maram families residing in Ilagandam, and some in the other town, the situation was ripe for civil unrest. To mitigate these potential issues, Mazal-Maram extended some of their defunct mines towards the surface. These were costly endeavors, but the trade they would enable on the surface would eventually recoup the expenses. Furthermore, this would dramatically reduce shipping costs, eliminating the elemental tolls for using the Earth Seam and passing through Urbal Nabad, as well as any future tolls Ilagandam might impose. In 481 LE, two centuries after the initial digging, they reached the surface, founding Tholig-Mizin, which became the new smelting works for Bandu gold.

In the Kilth Deeps War (614 LE - 623 LE), Mazal-Maram experienced a significant slowdown in its trade. This was the consequence of two factors: the ongoing war and the depletion of the once-bountiful Bandu veins. Unable to afford the "proximity fee" demanded by the elementals, who were in close proximity to the Earth Seam, Mazal-Maram found itself under attack. At the time, the town had a population of 20,000 residents. The elementals, though numerically inferior, posed a serious threat. This changed when they forged an alliance with the Reds of Kilth. By the war's conclusion, the former gold barges had been transformed into slave barges. The settlement was subsequently depopulated, and in the vicinity of the Earth Seam, the elementals reduced the town to piles of rubble.